A Letter to Motherless Daughters on Mother’s Day

Here we find ourselves again, on the brink of another second Sunday in May. It’s easier in some years than in others, isn’t it? For many years after my mother died, this Sunday was all about missing her on a day that seemed culturally sanctioned to remind girls like me of what we no longer had. Later, it became a day to spend with my daughters and celebrate our bond. Now it’s also the day that caps off a month of Motherless Daughters Luncheons all over the US, Canada and Australia, bringing women together worldwide to honor mothers who are no longer living.

Many of the women who participate in these luncheons lost their mothers when they were children and teens. In other words, five, ten, twenty, even forty years ago. There aren’t many occasions to acknowledge the profound effect such a loss has had on us, or how long the ripple effects last.

Grief books and bereavement programs tend to focus on the first year or two after a loss, to help mourners move from a phase of intense grief back to optimal functioning. To receive this kind of support immediately after a loss can be invaluable. To need it ten or twenty years later is a different story entirely. We don’t have a framework or even a language to adequately talk about historical losses. So we often find ourselves unprepared, after the intense phase passes, to understand what comes next.

When someone close to us dies, we need to figure out how to continue without that person’s living presence. At the same time, we’re struggling to create and maintain a new, inner relationship with the person who died. So much of the pain I used to feel around Mother’s Day, I realize now, came from a disruption in that inner relationship. When my family stopped talking about my mother dying, we also stopped talking about her life. As a result, my mother and I became disconnected. I felt no bond with her in the present, only in the past, until my daughter was born/ That’s when a need to feel close to my mom came rushing in like a forceful, rogue wave.

There’s nothing new about visualizing grief as an ocean. grief does have properties that seem to advance and retreat, ebb and flow. But the metaphor positions mourners as powerless to the mercy of nature, and I’m not sure that part is true. Waiting for a wave to recede is a very active process. It requires a commitment to patience, an agreement to delay gratification, and faith that the water will eventually return to a calmer, more predictable state and we’ll stand on dry sand again. We have agency here.

Every spring for the past 25 years, I’ve been asked, “What’s the best way for a motherless daughter to spend Mother’s Day?” Over the years I’ve talked about doing an activity your mother once enjoyed; about being kind and patient with your grief; and about taking time for self-care.

This year, I’ve been thinking more about how to translate growth into action, and so I’ve been answering the question differently. Because as contradictory as it may sound, forming new connections to a mother who died is, I believe, what best helps us cope with our mothers being dead.

This Mother’s Day, I invite you to think about which of your mother’s qualities you admire most. Did she appreciate beauty? Work hard at everything she did? Always show kindness to your friends? Then ask yourself, Which of these qualities would she most have liked to see carried forward in me? (If you had a difficult or disconnected relationship with your mother, which qualities do you hope to avoid? What are their opposites?)

Now pick one of the qualities that you’d like to carry forward. In what way, small or large, can you translate it into action on Mother’s Day? Can you rope off part of the day so you can appreciate something beautiful, or work hard at a task, or help a friend in need? Can you think of a way to make someone’s else’s life happier on this day, or to improve your own, using a memory or story about your mother as your inspiration and guide?

If this weekend is easier than usual for you, please extend your hand to another woman in need. If you’re having a tough time yourself, especially if your loss is very recent, I promise the water will eventually recede. You’ll walk on a dry shoreline again.

The sand is soft there. The sun is warm. Keep walking. So much is waiting for you, just around the next bend.

Comments

Thank you for that! Unfortunately, my grief is compounded by the fact that my own daughter is turning away from me. I lost my mom when I was 8 so I have very few memories of her. My dearest wish was to have a loving and caring relationship with my own daughter but she wants very little to do with me. I have tried so hard but she is so hurtful to me. I can’t stop crying and feel complete despair…

Michelle, I lost my Mom a month before I turned 13 and four years later I lost my Dad. Both passed away from cancer. I would give my right arm to have them here with me today. My daughter is 31 and she abandoned me 4 years ago and we haven’t spoken since. God didn’t say it was going to be an easy road, he said he was going to help us through it.

i have the same issue with my teen daughter. my mom was abusive and i gave my daughter a beautiful childhood and closeness. she rejects me and its a double whammy. we ask for too much from these daugthers. They are not our healers. We are. The pain of this relationship may recede. your daughter deeply loves you thru her challenges. she may need normal space. i think we hope for so much and it just looks like they dont care about us thru our grief lens. i pray your daughter comes around. many of my friends have.

Hope, if you read this, please know that when I stumbled across this book while looking for a different one, I was about 15 years post-loss. My mom, Alvadine, died of liver cancer on May 12, 1982. I was 18, she had just turned 41 years old. I am an only child and had no close friends who’d gone through this. I was so lost. I’d been to counseling but not specifically for mother loss. I just figured that this was just a sucky thing that happened and I’d always be a victim of the aftermath. “Nothing I could do about it,” I figured. “Just move along…”

Then I read your book. I cried every night as I read. All my emotions poured out onto those pages and I felt reborn. I found so many pages filled with what I always thought were my experiences alone. I was free of that victim mentality and now knew my life could still be a happy one.

I’ve reread your book numerous times over the years and find it helpful every time. I keep a couple colors on hand for when I hear of another young lady whose mother has passed. For me, “Motherless Daughters” changes my life, and I wish I could thank you personally, but this post will have to do.

Tomorrow, on top of it being Mother’s Day 2019, is also the 37th anniversary of the day my mother died. As has been my routine, I’ll go put flowers on her grave, then sit and visit a bit. My grandkids have been with me on occasion and they have helped so much. They ask questions about her, opening up an opportunity to tell them stories about her and how much she would have loved being grandma & great grandma. I’ve just left Mother’s Day be however it unfolds. Sometimes I stay in my room most of the day. More often, though, I celebrate my mom and my memories of her. None of this would be possible without this book and for that, i am eternally grateful!

Thank you for this, as always you have found the words I could not to explain my thoughts exactly. I had hoped to attend the luncheon in Boston today but this year is a tough one for me and I decided to spend today with my memories so tomorrow could be joyful with my children. Again thank you for understanding my 35 year loss perfectly and validating that I am okay!
Julie

Hope,
I read your book about 10 years ago now. Saw you were on the board of “Mommys light” now “family Lives On”, and formed a lasting relationship with them, contributing to carrying in the traditions of the passed parent!! I want to give you a huge thank you, for helping me in my journey to find a foundation that carries on the memories of lost parents. My mom, had lost her mother at age 8, and had no remembrance of her. I donate in her memory.

I really appreciate this even though it’s been more than 50 years since my mother’s passing and I’m not 60 yet. Thanks so much for composing this awesome letter of comfort, hope, and courage! ❤ Diane in NYC.

Interesting that your sweet Mother named you Hope. In your beautiful words there is a hope extended to each of us….so we keep putting one foot in front of the other and the years roll past. Time does heal and the scar we carry in our hearts only is proof of the amazing love we find in a Mothers love. With Hope we find we do survive to be the daughters our Mothers dreamed we would be. Bless you Hope on this Mothers Day. Love, Connie

I am a very old woman myself, although still fairly vigorous (I like to think!). I have been burying my feelings about mother-loss all my life. My mother died of cancer when I was 5. My dad and my few aunts never spoke of her. I’ll not talk here about how loss of her affected my life–I tried to pretend it had no affect, but I now know that was nonsense. Would you believe that I am just discovering your book, 25 years after publication? Thank you for carrying the flame and for doing this work, and for continuing to interact with needy women. It’s Mother’s Day, always a very difficult time for me and for so many.
Thank you, Hope!!

My mother passed away very suddenly 9 years ago. I was 44. My father started dating 4 months after and remarried 13 months later. She is a nice lady and they are happy. However, the rapid moving on has been hard on my brothers and I. In doing so, my father never speaks of my mother and he expects the blended family to be one big happy family, as if my mother never existed. My question for you….Is it ok that I don’t acknowledge my dads wife on mother’s day? He is very upset with us for not calling her. However, to me- she didn’t raise me and isn’t my mother. I do love and respect her as my dads wife but I/we feel mither’s Day is for us to honor our own mother. Selfish? Thoughts and suggestions please.

I think it’s wonderful that you want to honor your Mom on that day. You only have one biological Mom. In addition, you Dad got remarried and although your step-mother didn’t raise you- there is definitely nothing wrong with sending her a card or celebrating the day with her just as long as she is a Mom. My 36-year-old step-daughter never called me for Mother’s Day. If you don’t want to call your stepmom- then just send her a card- but acknowledge her because it’s the right thing to do- just just my opinion.